


set on you

by kalakauuas



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: College AU, Implied Stalking, M/M, its real minor but a heads up regardless, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 14:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18095873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalakauuas/pseuds/kalakauuas
Summary: A couple of months in, it’s official: Lance has impeccable taste. He always seems to know exactly what it is Shiro likes, from restaurants to coffee shops—and coffee orders—to just fun activities. It’s like they’re on the same wavelength. Shiro can’t remember the last time in his life he’s had so much fun.What did he do to deserve someone so attentive?





	set on you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flyingisland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/gifts).



> gc challenge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am the one responsible for organizing a small group event where we made fics/art based off each other's playlists........and then i was the one who needed an extension for it lmfaO anyways, moth, this is my gift to you and im sorry you have to read it. 
> 
> please rest assured [moth's playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW5SENGbbkSKBD3GZ7N4W9Ky_uSouWHRw) is far superior than this fic.

“Crazy how we keep meeting like this,” Shiro has to say. 

Lance laughs. When he ruffles his hair the top sticks up messily and, when combined with the fresh coffee stain on his shirt, creates a look that’s almost unbearably cute. Shiro tightly clutches his now-empty cup. 

“If I didn’t know any better, Shiro, I’d think you were following me,” Lance says with a little quirk of his eyebrows. He follows up with a well-meaning smile, a just kidding. 

Shiro can’t help but smile back—it’s contagious—averting his eyes to look at the matching stain on his own shirt. He picks at the fabric. He’s not even upset, it’s far from the worst thing that’s gotten on his clothes.

“Nothing like that, I promise.” His eyes meet Lance’s again. “I think maybe it’s just good luck.” 

Perhaps it’s a little bold on his part to be saying such things, but considering this is the third time in a couple of weeks they’ve bumped—literally—into each other at random places, he might as well make the most of this minor inconvenience. He has to use that term lightly, however, because it’s anything but inconvenient when Lance is involved. 

These incidents—the dumbbell-meets-foot fiasco, Monday’s skateboard slip-up, today’s coffee disaster—must be some cosmic entity giving him a second, third, and now fourth, chance to ask out Lance McClain from his Ethics course last semester. Shiro couldn’t manage to scrape together enough courage in time to do it before winter break and he thinks the universe might be as fed up with him as he is with himself. That’s very fair. 

He was as good as gone when they were lucky enough to be paired together for the final group project, reveling in every hour they spent together working on it. Lance had a way of making everything funny, especially the way their professor would drone on about the topics in class. Shiro could only grow more enamored with each meetup, and with the stellar grade they received at the end. 

Unfortunately, as break came upon them and then the new semester, Shiro just couldn’t bring himself to text Lance for something that wasn’t school-related. Why should he, and just assume that someone as bubbly and vibrant as Lance would want to spend more time with a nerd like Shiro than strictly necessary? He likely had more important things to do, or a lot of other friends to spend time with. 

It’s not like Shiro doesn’t have other friends, by the way, but like him, they tend to have their noses in books more often than not. It’s their duty as scholarship students or legacy admissions with formidable reputations to uphold, and it means they all get each other on a fundamental and crucial level for Shiro’s entire identity, but they just aren’t Lance. 

Lance who, despite these impromptu meetings under less than favorable circumstances, has been nothing but sweet, friendly, and understanding, to the point where Shiro has to wonder if he would be like that in a relationship too. What he wouldn’t give to find out for sure. 

“I think you’re right about that,” Lance says, “Maybe we could... grab lunch then? Keep the streak going?” 

He takes on a more bashful expression, that’s quite different from the confident and flirty person Shiro is used to seeing, when he asks. It’s extremely compelling and Shiro doesn’t have to think twice before he’s saying yes, stained shirts and all. They walk to the other end of campus, where Shiro’s favorite slice of mediocre pizza is, although Lance wouldn’t know that yet despite suggesting it. Somehow, mysteriously, it tastes better than usual. 

“So you changed your major again?” Shiro asks as he pops the last piece of crust into his mouth. 

Lance nods with a laugh. “Don’t say  _ again _ like that, it makes it seem bad! But yeah, I think Journalism is gonna be the one that sticks this time.” 

He could see Lance doing that, pencil tucked behind his ear as he pores over notes he took during an interview, camera slung around his neck. Or maybe he would be the type to give the daily news on TV—he has the face for it. Shiro tells him as such, calling his lunch date Special Correspondent Lance McClain. It has a nice ring to it. 

Lance agrees that it does, and he starts talking about how exciting it is for him to piece together a story based on research he’s done—like essays but with a purpose, he says. He likes that even with just one small bit of information, he can go quite far if he looks at the right stuff. 

“I mean, maybe it’s not as exciting as Astronomical Engineering, but—”

“No!” Shiro interrupts. “I think it’s very cool. It’s just different, but still really important.” 

The way Lance smiles at that... Shiro has to feel pleased with himself. He’s not lying. Any and all fields of study are important, especially if they make someone happy, and judging by Lance’s reaction, he’s very happy with Journalism. 

They pay—or, Lance pays—and leave the teeny restaurant, still talking about school because it’s what they know best, and without even realizing it Shiro has steered them to his apartment building. He looks up at the looming brick, for once not relieved to see his window on the third floor waiting for him to turn the light on inside. It’s not the end of a strenuous academic day this time, it’s the end of a date come all too soon. 

“Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you walk over here, especially if it’s out of your way at all,” he says. 

Lance shakes his head and points in the general direction of the nearest on-campus housing. “No worries, dude! I’m right over there, actually. It’s just more good luck, right?” 

Of course it is. Maybe his string of encounters with Lance really is nothing but good luck, instead of a bold claim made for the sake of flirting. Either way, Shiro doesn’t mind if these are the results it yields. 

He feels Lance lightly brush their hands together. It’s a fleeting touch, too quick to allow Shiro to wrap their fingers together, and lamentable given how much he’d like to. Lance has nice hands, smooth-skinned and long-fingered, and tapered at the tips—quite the contrast to Shiro’s larger, squared-off palms. 

“So... I’ll see you later?” Lance asks with puppy eyes. 

And who is Shiro to say no? “Of course,” he replies. 

He can’t bring himself to go inside his apartment building until Lance is completely out of sight, and even then he peeks out of his window to see if he can catch a final glimpse of him, maybe see which of the dorms he walks into. 

Is that creepy? He can’t help himself. Hopefully, this string of good luck continues indefinitely. 

  
  
  
  
  


They see each other twice next week, and thrice the next week, and every day the week after that. A couple of months in, it’s official: Lance has impeccable taste. He always seems to know exactly what it is Shiro likes, from restaurants to coffee shops—and coffee orders—to just fun activities. It’s like they’re on the same wavelength. Shiro can’t remember the last time in his life he’s had so much fun. 

Oh, and did he mention they’re dating now too? It’s paradise. 

Between school and... more school, Shiro found little time to worry about anything else possibly fitting in between. His days were a monotonous blur of paper and computer programs and theories that it seems only Lance could break up. The difference he made with his presence alone was a thousand times more noticeable when it was that consistent. If only he’d made a move to include Lance in his life sooner.

Shiro is in the library way too late on a Thursday, when a light nudge and a whispered  _ hey _ nearly send him skyrocketing. 

“Lance!”

“Sorry!” Lance is trying to suppress a laugh with little success, even in the dead quiet of the library’s third floor. Aside from the two of them, there’s only one other person on the other side of the reading room. 

Lance eyes them for a second before returning his gaze to Shiro. “Brought you something.” He presents Shiro with a cup of fancy water (read: adorned with orange slices). 

God, Shiro could kiss him—he can. He does. The water, and Lance, might as well be heaven-sent. His Hydroflask has been sitting empty on the table for the past hour and a half, but he was too absorbed in his most urgent assignment to bother walking over to the water fountain for a refill. Now that he’s been broken from his trance the dryness of his throat is impossible to ignore; he foregoes the straw and lid to just chug it down straight. 

“Thank you, I needed that,” he sighs. “What are you doing out right now? Surely not your homework.” He’s just teasing, even if studiousness isn’t one of Lance’s more prominent qualities. 

Lance has to assert that he was working on stuff in the main building where the Starbucks is, but since it’s almost bedtime and sleep is important,  _ yes even more important than school Shiro, _ he figured he should make sure he wasn’t asleep at some desk in the library. Shiro wonders aloud how he knew to find him all the way up here, and Lance tells him that he isn’t the only one privy to the secret of the reading room nearly always being available as a study spot. 

With enough (okay, barely any) coaxing, Lance convinces Shiro to pack up for the night because he knows that he’s more than likely ahead on whatever he’s doing anyway. It’s time to rest. 

Shiro is extremely weak to puppy eyes, he’s come to learn. But who isn’t? 

The path they take home is familiar, cutting through the quad and going around the back of the English department building. There’s hardly any light back here, which is why Lance elects to turn on the flash when taking candid pictures of Shiro. 

It seems to be one of his favorite hobbies since they started dating, and probably the only remotely annoying thing Shiro could name about Lance, but even then it’s annoying in an endearing way. Lance always shows him the pictures he takes and sometimes they look really nice, depicting Shiro at the few easygoing moments of his life, and sometimes they’re beyond unflattering. Shiro didn’t know his face could look like that. For some reason, it’s those pictures that always end up on Lance’s Snapchat. The nice ones stay between them.

“Lance—” Shiro puts a hand between his face and the camera in a half-hearted attempt to conceal it.

“Just one more!” The flash goes off. Lance admires his work. “You’re cute.” 

“Yeah, well, so are you,” Shiro says. 

Lance scrunches his nose and tugs on a strand of hair. “Recent development. You’ve  _ been _ cute.” 

Shiro can only roll his eyes. 

Their arrival at Lance’s dorm room is, as always, sooner than either of them would like, and Shiro is reluctant to press a kiss on his mouth lest it means he has to leave. But as their conversation drags and the minutes tick by, Lance’s back to the door disproves Shiro’s theory that if they linger long enough he will be invited to bed, so. He bids his farewell and walks down the hall backward so he can keep looking at Lance. 

  
  
  
  


It didn’t take very long for Lance to start spending more and more time at Shiro’s apartment, making his bright presence right at home among Shiro’s neutral decor and endless piles of textbooks. Once black, blue is now Shiro’s favorite color. He likes to fall asleep to it, and wake up to it. 

“Morning,” Lance says with a peck to his forehead, exposed by the wild mess of his bed hair. 

“It’s 11:30.” Shiro tends to succumb more easily to sleeping in when he’s sharing the bed. 

Lance laughs. “Still morning!” He gets out of bed, stretching his arms to the sky and then downwards to his toes with a satisfied groan. Shiro comments on how much he likes that sound, to which he’s answered with a scoff that’s not very scandalized and pink cheeks. 

“Why are you putting clothes on?” Shiro is pouting—he can’t help himself, even if Lance is putting on one of his shirts.

“I have to get something from my apartment before I go to work in a bit.” Lance is hopping around on one foot trying to pull his boots on.

Shiro offers to go with him, not yet ready to send Lance off, away from him, and also because he’s curious to see how his boyfriend chooses to live in his room. He’s quickly shot down, however, by Lance’s usual claim that it’s too messy to properly show Shiro around in. He’s only gotten as far as the front door.

“Lance, you know I won’t judge you. You’ve seen how messy this place gets.” He makes a sweeping gesture at the clothes and pillows strewn about. 

“Yeah, but that’s because of me. Imagine how messy an apartment I actually live in can be.” Lance checks the time on his smartwatch. “Ah geez, I really gotta run. I’ll see you later?” 

With a nod, Shiro motions for Lance to come close enough for a goodbye kiss. They have standing dinner plans every Sunday anyway. 

When the front door clicks shut, he’s already feeling Lance’s absence. Admittedly, the bed feels quite small when they’re both tangled up in it, but he greatly prefers it to the vast emptiness it seems to pose when it’s just him. Plus, he runs cold in his sleep unless he’s with Lance. 

Sighing, Shiro sits up and throws the covers off his half-naked body, and then there’s a thud on the floor. He sits up farther to inspect. 

“Ah.” Lance forgot his phone, as it’s lying face down halfway underneath the nightstand. He’d recognize that neon blue phone case anywhere. He’ll surely want it back, considering it’s so rare for Lance to not have it in his hand at every point in time. That’s fine by Shiro, so long as the other one is free to rest in his. 

It’s surprising that Lance didn’t come racing back inside immediately, but he must’ve been in quite the hurry to not realize right off the bat. Maybe if Shiro gets dressed right now he can catch him at home before he leaves.

He throws on a sweatshirt and athletic pants, a cellphone in each pocket of them, before heading down to his car so he can guarantee a speedy arrival. Thankfully Lance only lives on the second floor because Shiro isn’t really in the mood to climb a lot of stairs yet. 

He’s halfway through the first flight when the phone in his left pocket, Lance’s, dings. 

It’s from Hunk, one of Lance’s good friends. 

**Bb it’s Lance I left my phone!! I’ll stop by on my break to get it? :3 around 4**

Hunk also lives on his floor, if Shiro remembers correctly, so maybe Lance is still around... Shiro walks to the end of the hallway, to 245, too fixated on making sure he gets to the right door to notice the large form heading towards him. 

“Woah! Hey, whoops, sorry Shiro,” Hunk says, steadying him with two big hands on his shoulders. Shiro is far from a frail person, but Hunk’s hands still envelop most of his shoulder in a way that demands notice. He’s also in the Engineering program—Mechanical—and has created some of the most intricate projects Shiro has ever seen, even with those hands. It’s very impressive. 

“It’s okay Hunk, I should’ve watched where I was going.” Shiro waves his hands in front of him apologetically. “Do you know if Lance has gone to work yet?” 

“If he hasn’t, he’ll probably leave any second. Anyways man, I gotta head over to my study group—I’ll see ya.” Hunk readjusts the bulging backpack he’s got on and Shiro waves him goodbye. 

He gets to Lance’s door, knocks a polite three times, and smiles a big smile when his favorite person peeks through the crack of the door. 

“Shiro—! Um—”

Leaning against the doorframe, he presents Lance’s phone to him. “Brought you something.” 

Lance’s face twists up for a second, but he relaxes when the realization hits him. He grins, his cheek pressing against the edge of the door he keeps nearly-shut, really only allowing enough room for his face to appear. His hands sneaks out somehow to pluck the phone out of Shiro’s grasp. 

“Babe, you didn’t have to—” Lance scrunches his nose, like a rabbit— “I was fine waiting until I could get it from your place.”

He was already on his way out, Shiro tells Lance, knowing full well his boyfriend will see through the lie, which is evidenced by the quirk of his brow and a half-serious eye roll. Uh-huh, on your way out. 

“Really!” Shiro laughs, teases because it’s fun. “By the way... are you not dressed or something? Why are you hiding behind the door, Lance?” 

“Oh, um, it’s just—”

“Can I see?” Gently, Shiro pushes against the door to coax it open just a little further. Who can blame him, for wanting to see Lance possibly half- or totally undressed? He’s not sure what he’s expecting exactly, maybe some embarrassing work clothes or tiny boxers, but it certainly isn’t the resistance that Lance puts up. 

That’s so weird. Why is he acting so shy all of a sudden, when usually he’s anything but? There’s absolutely no way Lance’s state of dress is that bad, or even his apartment too messy, to not show Shiro. 

“Shiro, hold on—”

“Lance, just let me see.” He knows he’s stronger than Lance. It isn’t often that he takes advantage of that fact, but Shiro is tired of this curiosity that has lingered for the past few weeks. 

“Really, you don’t wanna see it, it’s a huge dis—”

Shiro isn’t listening anymore. He pushes the door all the way open. 

It’s... definitely not something he would’ve wanted to see. Ice being poured over his head has proved less shocking.

It’s a mess, a huge conglomerate of stuff Shiro can’t believe Lance owns, but above all, he can’t believe how he’s managed to organize it. 

So, the front door opens right into the living room, a huge window directly across it and two blank walls on either side, except one wall is just. Covered. In pieces of Shiro’s life. There are photos, tons of them, and Shiro is in each one. 

Shiro drinking coffee at his favorite shop, the one Lance suggested on their third date; Shiro and a classmate talking over some mediocre pizza; Shiro at practice when he still played baseball his sophomore year—it goes on and on, these snapshots of Shiro at just about every moment of his college life. Not only that, but school newspaper articles featuring him are also posted up, posing with academic teams and various awards. If Shiro dared a closer look, he’d see pictures of him lounging in his apartment through the window.

“That’s—” Where to begin? “That’s my shirt.” 

It’s the one Lance had thrown on this morning, it says  _ Garrison University Baseball, _ and it’s nailed next to the set of photos that feature Shiro in the gray and white uniform as a pitcher. 

“Shiro, I can explain.” Lance steps in front of him, fully dressed in a plain tee shirt and jeans. 

Explain how? Shiro wants to ask him, because something like this requires very little explanation. It speaks for itself, and if anything it even offers an explanation for a lot of the seemingly, serendipitously, effortless parts of their relationship. Of course Lance always knew where to go and what to do. Of course Lance, despite his vocal renunciation of the sciences, seemed to know quite a bit about Shiro’s field of study. 

“When did this start?”

“Only since last year!”

Shiro is still fixated on absorbing every detail of the wall. “Last... semester?” he asks, hopeful. Maybe his brain is working too fast to actually process correctly the words that come out of Lance’s mouth.

There’s a pause, and then Lance shakes his head shamefully. “Last year.” 

Okay. Okay. “Okay.” 

“Shiro?” 

The gentle brush of Lance’s fingers on Shiro’s arm burns even through the fabric of his sweatshirt. He fixates on that, like a point of clarity. 

“Why would you do this?” Shiro asks. He just wants to understand. Maybe then he will figure out how to feel. 

Lance sighs. “It started with your baseball poster. Hunk had one and he gave it to me so I put it up because I always thought you were cute, and then we had class together...” 

It’s like he’s getting sucked into a tunnel. He knows exactly what poster Lance is talking about—some promo thing the team did for a prospectively good season to try and get students to attend games. They weren’t anything special, just each of them facing the camera head-on with serious “game faces” and the schedule for home games along the lower half. Actually, now that Lance mentioned it, his eyes are drawn to that very poster. 

“I started talking to you and you were so cool, Shiro. Doing all this and that and just being you.”

Cool? Shiro remembers their interactions more like him floundering to not say something that no one except him would care about. Sometimes he didn’t even talk, just from being nervous. Those times Lance easily took over the conversation. What could he have been thinking, Shiro would wonder. He thought maybe dating would give him some clarity, but now he just has more questions. 

“You—you were like my hero!”

Hero. Hero. The word knocks itself around Shiro’s skull, taking up all the vacant space left. “What?” 

“My hero. At least, that was my initial impression of you. Then I started getting all these pieces and adding them all up and—and—the real person was more than I could’ve imagined.”

The curl of Lance’s hand around his wrist is much louder than Lance’s voice. Shiro nods, finally chancing a look at his boyfriend’s face—pale as paper, eyes wider than he’s seen before. With his other hand, he covers Lance’s grip.  

“Okay.” 

Is it? Is it okay? This is one of those things, that Shiro of course never saw himself going through? And therefore never considered what he would do if it actually happened. He needs a moment. A lot of moments, actually, to collect himself. 

Except Lance has to go to work. They don’t have very many moments. 

There’s just enough time for him to ask his most pressing question, at least. 

“Why me, Lance?”

He shrugs, having the decency to look appropriately embarrassed. “I don’t know. My heart was just set on you, I guess.” 

It’s an oddly sweet sentiment, given the jarring overall nature of the situation. Lance is just... like that, it seems. 

“Look, Shiro, I have to go to work, I’m sorry—” Lance is grabbing his keys and coat— “But we can talk about this later? I’m so sorry.” 

“Yeah... Yeah, we can.” 

The door closes behind Lance with an unsure click, and Shiro stays rooted to his spot for just a few seconds before moving, in case Lance decides to come back inside with a bag for his head and some rope or something. When the safe amount of time has passed, and he isn’t in the middle of being kidnapped, he turns his attention to the shrine Lance has set up for him on his wall. 

Then he just turns his back on it. Walks out of the apartment, and goes home. Maybe if he pretends he didn’t ever see it, it will erase itself from his memory, and they won’t ever have to talk about it again. It’ll be easier that way—and what else has their relationship been, if not easy? 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this isn't quite the kind of thing im super great at writing, but thats the point of a challenge ehe uwu so i hope i did okay !!! i also hope yall enjoyed especially my little mota <3 thank u for reading


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